


with whom can you sit in water?

by bleuboxes



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Mortal, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Underage Drinking, also rachel is a LESBIAN sorry i dont make the rules, also: based on stupid shit i have done at some point or another so, annabeth centric, annabeth deals with the idea of change and how its not always a bad thing., we love to see it.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleuboxes/pseuds/bleuboxes
Summary: “I can’t even get Jason to hold me like that,” she laughs. Annabeth’s mouth goes dry and she pretends to join in.“You know Percy,” Annabeth says, rolling her eyes. She asks Piper to send the pictures her way and feels sick to her stomach.Thalia gives Annabeth a knowing look.This is bad. Very bad.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 13
Kudos: 267





	with whom can you sit in water?

**Author's Note:**

> for christmas, i asked my mother for a hard copy set of these books bc i have been borrowing my brother's and that isnt gonna cut it anymore. she gifted them to me, i just re read them and i been knew but,, percy and annabeth invented love so ,,, here we are.  
>    
> i listened to a lot of the hello, dolly soundtrack, hozier, and my chem before writing this so i apologize for the emo bits.  
> pls pardon all mistakes!
> 
> title comes from the poem After Bombardment, Sonya written by Ilya Kaminsky. its one of my favorites so def check it out.
> 
> also im working on a playlist for the both of them,,, so stay tuned.

Annabeth wants to start out by saying that she is not usually one to be in want of a kiss from her best friend. She is not a person overly ruled by emotion and out of the blue things – however, sometimes her cancer sun really pops out – usually that is not a good sign, but it happens - and she has to deal with the emotional fall out.

So yeah, that’s how she got to be burrowed in Percy’s chest on the old, musty pink carpet in his mother’s old cottage. He’s holding her tight, as her face rests in the crook of his neck, her legs wound in fetal position between his cross-crossed ones. Percy’s laughing and spitting water on her messy hair as Jason tries to pour some in his mouth.

They’re all a little _too_ drunk on friendship and cake flavored vodka.

But that’s not the point.

They were talking about best and worst kisses – because most people her age really have nothing better to do, really - and Jason and Piper are laughing because all of theirs are the same, and Hazel and Frank are both surprised to hear that they were each other’s firsts, and Rachel is going on about how it took her one time making out with some stringy emo dude at her first college party to confirm her lesbianism – and then Percy, her lovely, beautiful, best friend – Percy goes on to say that he’s never kissed anyone before.

Annabeth is surprised because, well, she thought for sure that he and Rachel were once an item and there’s _no way_ that his fourteen year old self _did not_ kiss her – but she was wrong – and Rachel confirms.

Apparently he went for it, but Rachel turned him down. He admits to feeling dejected about it then, but now it makes him feel something that makes him giggle uncontrollably.

She’s got her eyes closed, and snuggles closer to him, as she admits – just loud enough that she’s never kissed anyone either. She came close with Luke, but that never worked out. She doesn’t think anyone hears her, because Leo goes on to yell about how he’s never had a bad kiss ever – and you can ask the hundreds of ladies, who will undoubtably back up that claim. Jason snorts, and says something that begins a pretty funny banter, but Annabeth isn’t listening.

She’s hung up on the fact that Percy, her friend of seven – nearly eight - years has not kissed anyone. And well, two and two makes four, so she gets the brilliant idea that they should be each other’s first.

“You should kiss me,” she mutters, eyes still closed, laughter shrill in her ears. Percy, who was pretty languid before, turns stiff as a board. She doesn’t know why, “You haven’t kissed anyone. I haven’t kissed anyone. It’s perfect.”

Percy sounds like he’s about to say something, but Annabeth has another pressing thought that she needs to get out.

“Actually, scratch that,” she yawns, “I don’t ever want to move from this spot. You’re so comfortable, Percy. Like a giant, lovely pillow.”

She pauses as he relaxes, and his arms tighten around her curled up frame.

“Don’t stop holding me,” she asks, dozing off to sleep to the joyful lull of her friends’ conversations.

* * *

Annabeth is mortified by her actions. She pleads the fifth the next morning – after she walks down the too-steep stairs (she’s not sure how she got upstairs to the bed, now that she thinks about it) and has a staring competition with a squirrel that somehow managed to break into the cottage. She’s holding out by the water tank, watching its beady, black eyes as it stands on the fishing pole holder that juts out on the other side of the room. She’s waiting for someone to make the first move –

Then someone upstairs moves, making the old, creaky floor groan, and the squirrel perks up – and runs up into a hole its chewed in the ceiling. Annabeth takes off, jumping right back into bed and tries to fall asleep again.

It doesn’t work. Someone is snoring on the floor, she’s still a little dizzy, and Rachel stole all the blankets. She goes back downstairs – which is now squirrel free – grabs a water, and a sweatshirt off the back of the old Lay-Z Boy recliner, then makes her way out of the cottage, across a little road and down a pine laced path to a dock, an old, rotted thing that juts out into a lily infested lake.

The sun sits high enough in the sky, the blues are defined, and the cotton wisps of clouds make her feel something else. She looks at the little stone bridge across from her, connecting the island in the center of the lake with the mainland.

It’s so quaint and beautiful and quiet.

The chirping of the birds, the rustling of the wind through the tree branches and the brush, the croaking of the frogs, and even the sounds of fish jumping provide a calming atmosphere as she drinks her water and tries to think about what she did last night.

She knows she wanted to kiss him. Or maybe – she knows she wanted him to kiss her. She doesn’t want to be the one to make the first move; she doesn’t want to be the one responsible for ruining the relationship she has with her best friend of seven years.

She can’t do that to herself, and she can’t do that to Percy.

They’ve been through it all together, and she can’t imagine her life without him in it.

But that’s beside the point – if anyone asks her if she remembers being tangled up in his arms last night, she’ll say _no_. If he asks her about what she said last night, she’ll say _I’m sorry; you know how I get when I’m drunk._

It was tactical. Going along with the conversation. _I don’t know what you’re talking about – I never said I wanted you to hold me._

_Hold me._

_Don’t stop holding me._

_Please._

* * *

She returns to the cottage. Piper, Grover, and Thalia are up, sitting around the kitchen table, trying to piece together the previous night. Annabeth feigns innocence, and Piper kindly fills her in, even shows her a picture that she took of her and Percy together on the pink carpet.

“I can’t even get Jason to hold me like that,” she laughs. Annabeth’s mouth goes dry and she pretends to join in.

“You know Percy,” Annabeth says, rolling her eyes. She asks Piper to send the pictures her way and feels sick to her stomach.

Thalia gives Annabeth a knowing look.

This is bad. Very bad.

 _Hold me,_ the voice says in the back of her head, _hold me and don’t let go._

* * *

Summer comes and goes. Annabeth is busy between hanging out with Percy, interning at the local architecture firm, and worrying the fact that she’s in love with her best friend and that it’s _requited_.

She thinks it would be easier if it wasn’t. Then she could suffer and hope without the impending fear that everything is going to change – because it is – she knows it is.

She is not like Percy – Annabeth plans and anticipates and thinks everything though. That’s not saying she’s not impulsive – because she is, but she’s not impulsive in the way that Percy is.

He does what he thinks is right, and what he wants to – he doesn’t really think about the implications. Percy will act on his feelings when he feels the time is right. He will pick sometime special, or sometime that she’s not expecting – a quiet moment, where it’s just the two of them – and he’ll confess or act on it.

And Annabeth is terrified.

She wants it. She wants him. But she doesn’t want anything to change.

* * *

She’s not happy that she has to be back at school for Percy’s birthday, but part of her is relieved.

It’s easier to deal with her feelings from a distance. She can say _I love you, idiot,_ over facetime with a different inflection than she usually says and doesn’t have to deal with the immediate fall out; instead, she can overthink the blush on her face and the look Percy gives her over the phone from a safe distance.

She can flirt and laugh and fall more in love with her best friend without the dangers of making him something more.

Maybe that makes her an asshole.

She knows it makes her a coward.

* * *

The more she thinks about it, the less terrifying it seems.

Between classes and homework, making bad decisions with her roommates (vodka crans and Annabeth are no longer friends), and keeping up with Percy and her other friends at home, she has little time, but she spends that time thinking about her and Percy – imagining what it might be like to be with him like that.

And she comes to the realization that it really wouldn’t be all that different –

She doesn’t really need to worry about getting bored with him; he’s been her best friend since the sixth grade – they know how to sit in silence comfortably. They know how to be bored together – not that that is ever a problem – Percy is so action prone it isn’t even funny.

They can figure out dates – they already go to the movies and get lunch and just lounge together. She’d just get more of an excuse to have him hold her, to sit close to him, touch his face, and chest, and hand –

And, while she’s a little about the intimate moments that will eventually come, she’s comfortable with Percy.

Percy, in all that he does, is considerate of others, he’s kind, and caring, and he knows her – and he knows what she’s comfortable and not comfortable with.

She knows that they could have fun, eating ice-cream in their underwear on a Sunday afternoon while _A Streetcar Named Desire_ (or another of her favorite movies) plays in the background.

She pictures it – closes her eyes, pulling her comforter up over her face on a cold, October Saturday morning, and lets herself imagine a world where she isn’t a coward, where she and Percy are together - stupidly, and incandescently happy off their love and affection for each other.

She _longs_ for it – and other similar scenarios that involve loving and laughing with her best friend – and it makes her ache.

* * *

She’s not able to come home until the end of the semester – which sucks; it’s the longest she’s gone without seeing Percy and the rest of her friends (and family). The time apart makes the reunion that much sweeter.

Her father and step-mother are so happy to see her that they treat her to dinner, she’s actually getting along with her stepbrothers for once, and Piper is throwing a Christmas party at her dad’s pool house.

Percy’s let her know that he’s not going to be home until the twentieth because, and she quotes, his university is stupid and mean and making him stay until the last possible day and the latest possible hour to take a final exam that for a class that doesn’t even pertain to his major.

So, while she misses him and wishes he was here, with her, chilling out on the living room floor while she’s painting her toenails, she’s glad she’s got the extra days to figure out how to tell him that she’s really fucking in love with him. 

She knows she needs to do it before Piper’s. She doesn’t need a repeat of the cottage incident, and if she is going to curl all up on Percy like that again, she wants to be able to be like, _yeah, that’s my boyfriend. What about it?_ She wants to be gross and in love like Jason and Piper are and make all her friends fake gag when they see her and Percy together because they’re so happy.

She wants to be able to sit next to him on the gross, dingy pink carpeted floor of his mother’s cottage, look into his deep, sea green eyes, count the freckles that lightly linger on his nose and cheeks, analyze the crease in his brow, touch the soft ends of his hair, which hangs messily over his eyes when he’s tired. She wants to touch the muscles of his arms, and his chest, and his legs. She wants to touch his face gently, the way a lover does in the tender moments of the morning before the sun comes up. She wants to kiss him, lightly, deeply – _always_ lovingly. She wants to wind his fingers through her own, like a vine to a tree, and she wants them to grow old and to rot together, forever intertwined.

She pauses for a moment, a thought comes to her, then she texts Sally Jackson.

Annabeth has a plan.

* * *

Percy will not be back home until about ten o’clock that evening. Annabeth has been chilling with Sally since about six. Annabeth is pretty sure that Sally knows something is up because Annabeth is wearing jeans – with a belt – and a long sleeved shirt that Percy bought her as a joke last year; it has a bunch of stoned cartoon characters printed on it. (Her favorite is Bugs Bunny; Percy’s always been partial to Sooby Doo.) While she did not put on make-up – which would have been a dead give-away – she is wearing her favorite earrings and attempted to tame her hair.

Annabeth is dressed up. Annabeth does not get dressed up when she’s at Percy’s.

That’s beside the point though; She talks to Sally about school, and Percy, and other stuff – like boys, and how awful the new _Star Wars_ movie was. It is, however, a Friday night, and after Sally makes a light dinner for herself, her husband, Paul, and Annabeth, Sally and Paul get ready to head out – some of Paul’s college friends are in town for the weekend – you know, _reunions._ They leave at about eight-thirty, and Sally waltzes out the door with a smug grin and a “good luck” on the tip of her tongue.

Annabeth laughs as she migrates to their couch, turns on the tv, and tunes into the _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_ episode that she swears she didn’t miss because she would never be caught dead watching it.

* * *

She’s not sure what time Percy comes home, but she knows he’s here because she’s just woken up and his face is right in front of hers.

 _Oh god_ , she thinks, _he’s prettier than I remembered._

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he says. Annabeth sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Percy plops himself down next to her; their knees touch. Annabeth’s heart beats at a rate of about one hundred miles a minute.

She rests her head against his shoulder.

“When’d you get home?”

“'Bout twenty minutes ago.”

“And what time was that?”

“Nine fifty-seven.”

“You could have just said ten.”

“I could have.”

She asks him about traffic as he takes the remote and switches the channel; they are now watching _Wall-E_ which _will_ make her cry.

The movie’s only just started, and Annabeth isn’t really listening; she’s catching up with Percy, and his arm has wrapped its way around her. Her heart beats even faster now, but she’s not scared.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and gets closer to him.

Their conversation slows, and Percy grows quiet, intently watching the tv screen. Annabeth’s still got her eyes closed but opens them when she hears Percy singing under his breath (badly, she might add.)

She remembers this scene – watches as Wall-E reaches out to hold the other robot's hand. He’s nervous, as an old movie plays in the background – that’s where the song is coming from.

She tilts her head up, trying to get a look at Percy, who’s still singing along -

_“And it only, takes a moment – “_

“I love you,” It’s only just more than a whisper; it’s something she’s said a million times before, but it means something different to her now.

He stills, “Uhh, what?” He asks, stupidly. Annabeth is hot; she feels the warmth running to her face and her heart is about to leap out of her chest.

“I’m in love with you, Percy.” She doesn’t move an inch; keeps her eyes on the screen, and pray to whatever being is out there that this doesn’t blow up in her face –

“Oh,” he says, “ _oh –_ “ She can practically hear the smile that’s etched on his face, “ _Annabeth_.”

He kisses the top of her head, pulls her closer, and takes her hand in his.

He doesn’t say anything back, but she knows.

 _Hold me,_ she thinks, _don’t let go._

He holds her; she knows he always will.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are the bees knees! xx
> 
> the song that percy sings along to is from the movie Hello, Dolly ( one of my favorites, actually) and it's called It Only Takes A Moment. if ur bored and want to listen to the whole thing through, def go for it. it fills me with such a deep feeling of love and happiness,,,, 
> 
> also: the squirrel thing actually happened to me. it was traumatizing.


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